On my way to the quarter, I passed a field where hundreds of boys were being drilled by kordogans of the Zani Guard. There were little fellows of five and six and many older boys. This same thing was going on all over Amlot—this was the only schooling the Zani boys received. The only toys they were allowed to have were weapons. Babes in arms were given blunt daggers upon which to cut their teeth. I said that was all the schooling they received. I was wrong. They were taught to shout "Maltu Mephis!" upon any pretext or upon none, and a chapter from The Life of Our Beloved Mephis, written by himself, was read to them daily. It was quite a comprehensive education—for a Zani.
The quarter where I was to make the arrest had formerly been a prosperous one, as, during the regime of the jongs, scholars and scientists were held in high esteem; but now it was run down, and the few people I saw on the streets looked shabby and half starved. Arrived at the home of my victim (I can think of nothing more suitable to call him) I walked in with a couple of my men, leaving the others outside. As I entered the main room, which might be called the living room, I saw a woman step hurriedly between some hangings at the opposite side of the room; but not so quickly but that I recognized her. It was Zerka.
A man and woman sitting in the room rose and faced me. They both looked surprised; the woman, frightened. They were exceptionally fine-looking, intelligent appearing people.
"You are Narvon?" I asked of the man.
He nodded. "I am Narvon. What do you want of me?"
"I have orders to place you under arrest," I said. "You will come with me."
"What is the charge against me?" he asked.
"I do not know," I told him. "I have orders to arrest you—that is all I know."
He turned sadly to say goodby to the woman; and as he took her in his arms and kissed her, she broke down. He choked a little as he tried to comfort her.
The kardogan ?? who accompanied me stepped forward and seized him roughly by the arm. "Come on!" he shouted gruffly. "Do you think we are going to stand here all day while you two dirty traitors blubber?"
"Leave them alone!" I ordered. "They may say goodby."
He shot me an angry look, and stepped back. He was not my own kordogan, who, while bad enough, had learned from me to temper his fanaticism a little with tolerance if not compassion.
"Well," he said, "while they're doing that, I'll search the house."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," I said. "You'll stay here and keep still and take your orders from me."
"Didn't you see that woman sneak into the back room when we entered he demanded.
"Of course I did," I replied.
"Ain't you going to go after her?"
"No," I told him. "My orders were to arrest this man. I had no orders to search the house or question anyone else. I obey orders, and I advise you to do the same."
He gave me a nasty look, and grumbled something I did not catch; then he sulked for the remainder of the day. On the way back to the prison I walked beside Narvon; and when I saw that the kordogan was out of earshot, I asked him a question in a whisper.
"Was the woman I saw in your house, the one who ran out of the room as I came in, a good friend of yours?"
He looked just a bit startled, and he hesitated a fraction of a second too long before he replied. "No," he said. "I never saw her before. I do not know what she wanted. She came in just ahead of you. I think she must have made a mistake in the house, and been embarrassed and confused when you came in, you know it is often dangerous, nowadays, to make mistakes, however innocent they may be."
He could have been tortured and executed for a statement such as that, and he should have known it. I cautioned him.
"You are a strange Zani," he said. "You act almost as though you were my friend."
"Forget it," I warned him.
"I shall," he promised.
At the prison I took him at once to Torko's office.
"So you are the great scholar, Narvon," snarled Torko. "You should have stuck to your books instead of trying to foment a rebellion. Who were your accomplices?"
"I have done nothing wrong," said Narvon; "and so I had no accomplices in anything that was wrong."
"Tomorrow your memory will be better," snapped Torko. "Our Beloved Mephis himself will conduct your trial, and you will find that we have ways in which to make traitors tell the truth. Take him to the lower level, Vodo; and then report back here to me."
As I passed through the courtroom with Narvon, I saw him pale as his eyes took in the instruments of torture there.
"You will not name your accomplices, will you?" I asked.
He shuddered and seemed to shrink suddenly. "I do not know," he admitted. "I have never been able to endure pain. I do not know what I shall do. I only know that I am afraid—oh, so terribly afraid. Why can they not kill me without torturing me!"
I was very much afraid, myself—afraid for Zerka. I don't know why I should have been—she was supposed to be such a good Zani. Perhaps it was the fact that she had run away from men in the uniform of the Zani Guard that aroused my suspicions. Perhaps it was because I had never been able to reconcile my belief in her with the knowledge that she was a Zani. Quite a little, too, because Narvon had so palpably tried to protect her.
When I returned to Torko's office, the kordogan who had been with me when I made the arrest was just leaving. Torko was scowling ominously.
"I have heard bad reports of your conduct during my absence," he said.
"That is strange," I said—"unless I have made an enemy here; then you might hear almost anything, as you know."
"The information has come from different sources. I am told that you were very soft and lenient with the prisoners."
"I was not cruel, if that is what is meant," I replied. "I had no orders to be cruel."
"And today you did not search a house where you knew a woman to be hiding—the home of a traitor, too."
"I had no orders to search the house or question anybody," I retorted. "I did not know the man was a traitor; I was not told what his offense had been."
"Technically, you are right," he admitted; "but you must learn to have more initiative. We arrest no one who is not a menace to the state. Such people deserve no mercy. Then you whispered with the prisoner all the way to the prison."
I laughed outright. "The kordogan doesn't like me because I put him in his place. He became a little insubordinate. I will not stand for that. Of course I talked with the prisoner. Was there anything wrong in that?"
"The less one talks with anyone, the safer he is," he said.
He dismissed me then; but I realized that suspicions were aroused; and there was that brother of Lodas just full of them, and of real knowledge concerning me, too; and primed to spill everything he knew or suspected at the first opportunity. Whatever I was going to do, I must do quickly if I were ever going to escape. There were too many fingers ready to point at me, and there was still the message from Muso. I asked permission to go fishing the next day, and as Torko loved fresh fish, he granted it.
"You'd better stay around until after Our Beloved Mephis has left the prison," he said. "We may want your help."
The next day Narvon was tried before Mephis, and I was there with a detail of the guard—just ornamentally. We lined up at attention at each end of the bench where Mephis, Spehon, and Torko sat. The benches at the sides of the room were filled with other Zani bigwigs. When Narvon was brought in, Mephis asked him just one question.
"Who were your accomplices?"